• What is the 300 nm cross-country flight?

    A very important training mission

To obtain a commercial pilot’s licence a student pilot must successfully achieve various phases. We have, in fact, already talked about some of these, such as the night visual flight rules NVFR, but the student who wants to become a pilot must also meet some specific requirements.

Some of these are having at least 100 hours as pilot in command or PIC or the one we are addressing today, completing a 300 nautical miles cross country flight.

In this post, we tell you all about this well known and respected mission all pilots have to go through in their training.


The 300 miles‘ cross-country flight, aka ’The 300 nm Triangulation’

The 300 nautical miles long cross-country flight is a pilot’s training mission in which trainees must carry out a straight-line flight of at least 300 nautical miles (540 Km) with 3 landings and take-offs at airports other than the departure airport.

Students take advantage of this flight by discovering new air space and control zones which allows them to develop their radiotelephony skills, orientation and situational consciousness.

Additionally, the 300 nm crossing demands great planning on the part of the student pilot, who must study the air space they are flying to, the possible restricted areas and be aware of the entry and exit procedures at the new airports.

Wind is another factor trainees have to keep in mind when preparing their navigation as in route changes will be needed to keep to the planned route.

Once the triangular 300 nautical miles is completed and the pilots’ theoretical subjects have been passed, as well as the night visual flight and 70 hours of pilot in command, the student will be able to begin their multi-engine and instrumental phase. Following this, they will have to face CPL, UPRT and MCC phases. We will talk about these in further posts.

And now, here is the video of our student Samuel Perez’s 300 triangular miles on board a Cirrus SR20… Enjoy!

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